Wilson's senior was considered a threat for county gold in the long jump and high jump.

Two months later, those goals were left out of reach as a nagging hamstring problem resurfaced at the worst possible time.

The injury, which first occurred during the winter indoor season and was aggravated at a meet April 3, reached the breaking point at the 68th William H. Firing Meet at Shillington Saturday.

On his second attempt on the long jump, Witmyer felt a pop.

"All season my hamstring hasn't felt right," he said. "I knew if something doesn't go right, this thing could pull again. It just did. I wasn't hesitant about it or anything. I was just out there competing and it didn't hold up."

Witmyer jumped 21-4 on his first attempt, which was good for fourth place but was more than a foot shorter than his career best of 22-9, set as a sophomore.

The senior didn't compete in the high jump, which he was favored to win.

It has been a star-crossed career for Witmyer, who was stuck behind elite jumpers such as Muhlenberg's Tyrell Ellison as an underclassman. This was supposed to be Witmyer's time to shine, but he never reached full strength. His status for districts is undecided at this point.

"It might be too soon to tell, but it's pretty bad," he said while standing on crutches. "This is the worst it has felt. My coach and I were thinking if I could rehab all next week and come back and maybe high jump, that's a possibility."

Witmyer's bad break was about the only thing that went wrong for Wilson, which easily won the team championship in the boys and girls competition.

His disappointment was felt by the other Bulldogs.

"That put a damper on the whole day," Wilson coach Doug Dahms said.

•Brown makes mark?: Imani Brown had one turn remaining and he already had assured himself of a gold medal in the triple jump. So, why bother taking that last run?

Reading High's star sophomore wanted to break the Firing Meet record.

On his last attempt, Brown reached 47-11/2, snapping Tyrell Ellison's mark of 46-91/4 set last season.

"Last year when I came here, I jumped really bad," Brown said, referring to his sixth-place finish at the Firing in 2009. "I had to make up for it. I had to try to get something big."

Brown's record remained in doubt after the meet. All sprint and jump records were not acknowledged Saturday because they were considered wind-aided, but Brown didn't seem to benefit from the wind - which came across the triple jump runway. That ruling could change in the future.

The scary part for Brown's competitors is he wasn't particularly happy with his form Saturday. Even his best jump could have been better in his mind.

"It was just a bad day for me," he said. "I'm not really worried about it. It ended up good, but when I was jumping, I didn't end up where I wanted to be."

Brown will be among the favorites at the District 3-AAA meet later this week.

nClearing an unexpected hurdle: When you think of Tyler Brooks, you usually think of the jumps. He finished second in the triple and long Saturday.

It was a remarkable feat for Brooks considering this was only the second time he ran the 300 hurdles all spring. He competed in a dual meet against Twin Valley April 6 so he'd have a qualifying time.

"I was excited," Brooks said. "I'm tall, so I have an advantage over most people. I figured if I stayed with everybody else, on the last hurdles everybody is always tired. I figured I'd be tall enough to stay over them."

Hannibal-Nixon nicked the next-to-last hurdle, creating an opening for Brooks.

All of this leads to an obvious question: Why didn't Brooks run the hurdles more often during the season?

"Basically, I was being lazy," he said. "That's a really tough race and I didn't train enough for it. I knew I would have enough heart to finish this race and hopefully win."